Piercing the Veil, page 1
part #4 of Ghost Detective Novels Series
In the Ghost Detective Universe
Ghost Detective Novels
(best read in order)
Beyond the Grave
Unveiling the Past
Beneath the Surface
Piercing the Veil
Ghost Detective Shorts
(all standalone)
Just Desserts
Lost Friends
Family Bonds
Common Ground
Till Death
Family History
Heritage
Eternal Bond
New Beginnings
Severed Ties
Ghost Detective Collections
Unfinished Business, Volume 1
Piercing the Veil
Book 4 of the Ghost Detective Series
R.W. Wallace
Varden Publishing
Contents
Foreword
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Author's Note
Also By R.W. Wallace
About the Author
Copyright
Welcome to my Ghost Detective books. I’ve been living with these characters in my head for awhile, and a certain number of stories have come out of it. So many, in fact, that there are two parallel timelines.
A quick word to explain.
I started writing short stories about Robert and Clothilde. Had so much fun with them. And wondered what had happened to them when they died. They stayed so secretive! Then came the story Common Ground, and I got a definite link to Clothilde. And a way to get them out of the cemetery!
“Cool!” I thought, and started writing the next short story. Which wasn’t a short at all, but rather the beginning of a series of novels, the third of which you’re holding right now.
But I didn’t want to stop writing the shorts. So I’ve done both. In one timeline (this one), the ghosts get out of the cemetery and go looking for their own murderers, and in the other (the shorts), they’re still stuck in the cemetery and helping other ghosts find peace.
All of that to say you definitely do not need to read the short stories before starting the novels (though Common Ground will give some extra background), and the shorts can be read in any order. The novels, however, are best read in order.
So if you haven’t read Beyond the Grave yet, you might want to try that one first—although the stories can stand alone!
Enjoy!
R.W. Wallace
One
No two cemeteries are alike. Each one has its own specificities, oddities, sights.
My old cemetery, the one I haunted with Clothilde for thirty years and didn’t mind calling home, was rather small, like the village it belonged to. A shoulder-height stone wall, almost entirely covered in wisteria, wrapped us all in, with one stately wrought-iron gate opening on the parking lot and the village square, and one unassuming and squeaky gate in the back, close to our graves, allowing access to a residential area.
The grounds were vaguely L-shaped, with the older part of the cemetery where graves had started crumbling and inscriptions had become ineligible to the north, and the more recent graves overflowing with flowers and memorial plaques branching out toward the south-west. The quaint stone church with its short spire and single off-tune bell stood in the corner of the L, with the wide wooden doors visible from practically every grave in the cemetery.
The layout wasn’t as chaotic as some cemeteries—each grave had at least a small path leading to it and a few main paths had been planned out from the start, with plane trees lining the main one going from the parking lot to the church—but there also wasn’t a straight angle in sight. Which is just how I like it.
With each tomb taking up all its allotted space with headstones, slabs of granite in the general shape of a casket, imposing mausoleums, or small chapels built in remembrance of the dead, there wasn’t much room for grass.
In fact, my final resting place marked one of the rare grassy areas: a small bump in the ground next to Clothilde’s grave. Her family hadn’t invested in more than a basic headstone, which made the spot stand out.
Not that anybody but us noticed.
We haven’t been back to our cemetery in months. Once we figured out a way to get free of its confines, we jumped on the opportunity. That place was our home for thirty years and we learned to love it—but staying was never an option when justice for our murders weighed the scales.
Ironically enough, since getting out of our cemetery, we’ve visited so many other cemeteries, I’ve lost count. There was the one where my body was buried after it was discovered I’d been shoved into Clothilde’s grave like a stowaway. Then the two big ones in Toulouse when looking for another ghost’s dead husband, and a recent victim of the same serial killers who took us out thirty years ago.
And now… Now we’re making the rounds of over twenty cemeteries, looking for ghosts who can help us unearth evidence in the upcoming trial featuring a large number of local politicians.
Yes, that’s right. We’re taking depositions from ghosts.
And no, unfortunately, they won’t hold up in court.
But I’m certain they’ll help us anyway.
Captain Emeline Evian, who came to Toulouse to investigate the murders of two young women buried in our cemetery, was the catalyst we needed to finally start figuring out what exactly had happened to us, and why, in the late eighties. It’s thanks to her we were able to leave our old cemetery.
Our ghostly selves are attached to our bones. This means being stuck within the confines of the cemetery, or in the vicinity of our skeletons once we were exhumed. And when we convinced the highly ghost-sensitive Evian to steal a finger bone from each of us, we were able to attach to that bone and go where it went. The rest of our bodies went back to our graves without us.
Some days I think Evian regrets the decision to let us tag along for everything. I would too if I had two meddlesome ghosts hanging over me day and night, making snide comments and influencing my actions.
But she takes it in stride. I even think she’s come to like us.
And she’s just as set on finding everyone involved in whatever conspiracy we’ve stumbled onto as we are.
Today’s cemetery is minuscule. As Evian locks the car and pulls her bomber jacket all the way up to her chin, I lift off the ground a couple of feet to look over the redbrick wall. It’s a perfect square, less than fifty meters to each side. Inside, I see two chapel-like family graves, and twelve to fifteen smaller ones. I’d say there’s room for about five more, then the place is full.
Judging by the size of the village, it will be at least another century before they run out of plots. I counted twenty houses. The place is so small it doesn’t even have a church—and that’s saying something in this part of France.
A tiny village so deep in a valley in the Pyrenees it only gets direct sunlight in the summer months. Today, on a cold November morning, we can see the sunlight hitting the cliff wall on our right, but it’s not going to reach the cemetery before the sun retreats behind one of the snow-capped peaks to the south.
“God, I hope we don’t find anybody here,” Clothilde says as she hovers beside me. She’s wearing her usual high-waist jeans, white blouse, and worn Converse. Where I’ve added a winter jacket to my ghostly ensemble to pretend as best I can to be part of the world of the living, Clothilde doesn’t bother. She wears what she finds comfortable no matter what anybody else thinks.
The part of the sky that isn’t hidden by towering mountains is a perfect pastel blue, not a cloud in sight, and Evian’s breath is fogging on every exhale. She shoves her hands deep into her pockets while her shoulders lift to try to get the jacket’s collar to cover her ears.
The clothes she had sent down from Paris are good enough to keep warm in Toulouse, but not in the mountains. If we find someone to talk to, we’re going to have to be quick about it.
And I can only agree with Clothilde’s assessment. If the person we’re looking for became a ghost, they must be going crazy in such a small space.
“Only one way to find out,” I say and float down to walk alongside Evian as she approaches the cemetery’s gate.
Evian glances in my direction, then returns her focus to where she’s going. She has been able to see us—sort of—since July, when she almost died. For about an hour, she could see Clothilde perfectly, then, as she healed, we became visible only in her peripheral vision. Now I think it’s even less—she can’t make out any details, but she detect
We’d been running into dead end after dead end when we got the idea to go look for the ghosts. Oddly enough, being ghosts ourselves, we hadn’t thought of the possibility of other victims being in the same situation. If we haven’t moved on because we need our murderers to be brought to justice, it should be the case for others as well.
So we’re going through the list of people we assume were victims of the same murderous gang who got to us, and visit their cemeteries to see if anybody’s hanging around. To date, we have five duds and three ghosts. Although the ghosts have been willing to help, they haven’t been able to give us that one piece of information that might unlock the proofs we need.
And leaving the ghosts behind, going out into the world of the living while they have to stay put, has not been easy.
At least we weren’t leaving them alone. Each of the cemeteries we went to had at least one or two other ghosts to keep them company.
This place, though… With so few dead, the chances of several of them having unfinished business and becoming ghosts are slim to none.
“What’s this woman’s name, again?” Clothilde asks as Evian opens the gate and the squeal from its hinges bounces back and forth up the valley.
“Louise Verges. Found in a hotel room in Toulouse in 1994, with her wrists slit. Ruled suicide within an hour of the police arriving on the scene. Was a member of a political party and was being quite vocal in her criticism of the mayor.” All of which points toward her being a victim of the same people as Clothilde and myself.
Except the political activism. All the other women we’ve looked into were active in non-profit organizations, not members of political parties. Still, the rest fits so well, we have to check.
We enter the cemetery. I don’t even have the time to scan the grounds before a ghost rushes toward me, through me, and through the gate.
Except she doesn’t make it past the cemetery’s limits. She’s rebuffed at the point where the gate usually closes.
“Dammit!” she screams. She’s moving so fast, shaking hands and kicking at the gate, I’m having trouble making out any features.
She spots Clothilde standing two feet away and stops moving.
According to Louise’s records, she was twenty-eight when she died. I’d say this could be her. She’s about Clothilde’s height, has long blonde hair and clear eyes, and she’s wearing some sort of leggings and a baggy T-shirt.
“I’m Clothilde,” my friend says with a smile. “That other ghost is Robert, and the non-dead police officer is Captain Emeline Evian.”
A pause, while we wait for the woman to introduce herself in turn. Evian has sensed that something is going on and waits patiently two steps to the ghost’s left. This first part is best handled on our side of the veil.
“Are you Louise Verges?” I ask.
She’s gaping at us.
“You’re ghosts,” she whispers. “And you just walked in here.”
“Yes.” I pull myself up, ready for the explanation we’ve already given the three other ghosts. “We used to—”
“Can you get me out? Can you tell me how to lift whatever curse is keeping me in this godforsaken cemetery?” She’s an inch from my face, her clear eyes so intense she could give Clothilde a run for her money. “I got out when they exhumed me, but I only got to go to a dreary morgue and then they took me back here. And I can’t find a way to leave again! How do I leave?”
This woman is only barely holding onto her sanity. I wonder if she has been like this for a while, or if it’s the glimpse of what’s possible outside of her tiny cemetery that made her snap.
I give her my kindest smile. “You’re attached to your bones, Mademoiselle. We all are. Where your bones go, you go.” I hate having to tell her this next part, but sugarcoating her situation isn’t going to help anyone. “The only way out of here is if at least one of your bones is exhumed again.”
Her form seems to be shrinking. Her shoulders slump, her arms fall down to her sides. Her eyes project nothing but pure despair. “That’s never going to happen,” she whispers.
“Never say never,” Clothilde says as she jumps up to perch on the closest headstone. “And besides, we’re hoping to help you move on from this world. That you can do without your bones.”
“Move on?”
“You know.” Clothilde waves a hand toward the sky. “Moving on? To a better place? Wherever it is that all souls go when they’ve tied up their unfinished business?”
Louise doesn’t seem to be making much sense of what Clothilde is saying. She mouths the words “unfinished business.”
I glance around the cemetery, trying to judge if any of the graves look recent. “Have you… Has there been any other ghosts here since you died?”
A tear forms at the corner of Louise’s eye and she shakes her head. “Old Bernard died a couple of years ago, but there was no ghost. Not everybody becomes ghosts?”
“Only the ones with unfinished business,” I reply. “And once that’s taken care of, they can move on. To a place we’re certain is better.”
“That wouldn’t take much.” The loneliness in her eyes is killing me.
“We were kind of hoping you were murdered,” Clothilde says with her usual tact, legs dangling through the headstone, hands under her jeans-clad thighs.
That gets her attention. “Why?”
“Because we think you were killed by the same people who killed us and we want to catch the bastards.” Clothilde flashes a smile—one that incites fear rather than joy. “Wanna help?”
Louise’s back straightens, her form becomes less translucent. The tips of her hair start lifting. “You can make Hardouin pay?”
Jackpot.
Two
Evian huddles deeper into her jacket. Her nose is red from the cold and I think her teeth are chattering. When she feels our general excitement, she huffs. “This is going to take a while, isn’t it? She’s here and she has information?”
“I’m afraid so,” I reply. “Maybe walk around for a bit to keep warm?”
Evian actually rolls her eyes at my suggestion, then pointedly looks around the tiny cemetery. But she starts walking up the central path, jumping a bit with each step. “Be quick about it, all right? I’m not losing any toes because of this.”
Louise watches our exchange with wide eyes. “She can hear you?” Her voice is reverent.
I wobble my hand. “Yes and no. She can’t actually, literally, hear us, but she’s extremely sensitive to ghosts and has gotten frighteningly good at interpreting whatever it is that she feels or hears. We came here to look for you, so when she feels our excitement, and probably your presence, she knows what that most likely means.”
The longing in Louise’s eyes is almost painful to watch.
“Have you been here alone all this time?” I ask her gently.
Louise nods, her movements shaky. “There are maybe a couple of visitors a month, but none of them ever heard me.”
“No other ghosts?”
She shakes her head.
“Well,” Clothilde says. “We’re here to help. You mentioned Hardouin? The guy who was mayor of Toulouse back in the day?”
Hearing the name shakes Louise out of her funk. Her focus is back and the loneliness in her eyes is replaced by anger. “He isn’t mayor anymore? I thought that guy would stay in office until he keeled over dead.”
“He did, actually,” I say as I lean against the cemetery wall. “Had a heart attack at his desk less than a year after you died. In any case he would have been very old today had he still been alive.”
“Hardouin is dead?” A smile begins to form and there’s a lightness to her voice that has me wondering if she’ll move on right now, simply from knowing her nemesis is in the grave.
But she stays as solid as us. Crossing her arms, she nods in satisfaction. “Good.”
“He wasn’t actually the one to kill you, was he?” Clothilde asks. “None of the other important players seem to have gotten their hands dirty.”
Louise looks from Clothilde to me and back again. “What other important players? What’s going on here?”
Despite Evian clearly getting cold, jumping up and down close to a crumbling family grave in the opposite corner, we take the time to explain the situation to Louise. About the large number of young women whose deaths were ruled suicides without any real investigation. About Gérard de Villenouvelle, who is about to go on trial for the murder and rape of six of these young women spanning over two decades. About the real estate scheme we know exists but still don’t understand the goal of. About Hélori Xavier, the group’s latest victim, who is also a ghost in one of Toulouse’s biggest cemeteries.
